In recent years, fabrication of layered electronic structures has become increasingly important. Current methods of forming contacts and semiconductor devices typically utilize photomasks in a photolithographic process. However, photomasking is an expensive process. Extensive use of photomasks substantially increases circuit costs, especially of displays, formed using this technology.
In order to reduce costs, jet printing technologies have proven useful for fabricating inexpensive electronic devices on flexible substrates. U.S. Pat. No. 6,742,884 entitled “Apparatus for Printing Etch Masks using Phase Change Materials” by Wong et al., which is hereby incorporated by reference, describes jet printing phase changed materials as a mask in fabricating semiconductor devices. However, phase change materials have limitations in that thick layers are typically needed to block incident radiation. Furthermore, the phase change material is typically a sacrificial material that needs to be subsequently removed by etching.
After etching, contacts are typically formed. Contact formation typically involves additional photolithographic process to form metal structures that are properly aligned with semiconductor devices. One example of a structure that relies heavily on aligned contact formation is stacked semiconductor structures where an interlayer dielectric separates different functional layers. The aligned contacts connect the devices in different layers.
The complicated fabrication procedures result in expensive circuits. Thus an inexpensive method of forming and masking semiconductor devices and forming electrical contacts to the semiconductor devices is needed.